


heaving through corrupted lungs

by Alysae



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A little bit of blood, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Tony Stark's flippant humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alysae/pseuds/Alysae
Summary: “You’d think they would have developed some kind of medicine for this by now,” he joked.Pepper levelled him a hard glare as she twirled the bloodied pink petals in her hand, staining her perfectly manicured nails. “This is not ajokingmatter, Tony.”“Oh, I don't know, Pep. Seems like the biggest joke of my entire life. And you know I had many,” he added, plucking a petal from between his teeth. “Killed by love. Well, in this case, unrequited love. How ironic.”





	heaving through corrupted lungs

**Author's Note:**

> The Hanahaki Disease is an illness (fictional) born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs of flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals.

The first time his breath got caught in his lungs and he couldn’t breathe anymore, Tony’s first reaction was to think of his arc reactor─surely it had some kind of dysfunction, he only had to change it for the spare one, and he had to be quick─but then the air rushed back in and out. He felt like he had run a marathon.

And when he looked down, his arc reactor shined brightly back at him.

He still changed it, just in case.

***

The second time he lost his breath, he had been in the middle of a battle. The first time had been a mild inconvenience, at best, and quickly left his mind when he got distracted by something Bruce said as he entered the lab. Now it was far more than a mild inconvenience. His gauntleted hands flew to his armour’s neck in instinct, except it obviously did not help.

He heaved, trying to draw large gulps of air into his lungs, to absolutely no avail. He desperately thought about how long he could hold his breath before he passed out─or, worse, _died_ ─and counted the seconds.

He needn’t, though. His breath came back, just like before, and it left an uncomfortable taste in his mouth. He heaved slowly, lying motionless on the ground, his muscles suddenly aching.

“Tony? Tony, can you hear me?”

Voices rushed in, but it still felt like Tony was underwater, or some kind of slimy substance was sliding out of his ears. Which was a disturbing thought, and he turned his head to make sure it wasn’t the case.

(It was not. No slimy substance, thank god.)

It was Steve’s voice. And it was coming right from in front of him. He flipped the faceplate up and stared dumbly at the blond. Besides him stood Natasha, and then Clint─everyone was surrounding him.

He blinked.

“So. Did we win?”

“What happened right there?” Steve demanded, angry and concerned at the same time. Tony thought it was definitely a good look on him. Then again, most looks were good on him.

“Yeah,” Clint added from where he was standing. Steve was the only one kneeling. “Out of nowhere you stopped flying and were falling. Thor caught you, by the way, or that would have been a nasty fall.”

“Heh,” Tony said eloquently. Smooth, Tony. Real smooth. “I’ve had worse, I’m sure.”

“Tony, what happened?” Steve asked, voice softer.

Tony’s heart ached a little at the tone, still unbelieving that Tony and Steve somehow became friendlier with each other. It had been a surprise for the both of them.

(Then again, being locked in the same small room by your teammates probably helped it.)

“I don’t know, Cap. I kind of,” he waved a hand around, “lost my breath or something. Must’ve been the beauty of the battle that caught my breath away,” he added, quirking his lips up.

Steve didn’t find it funny, though. He scowled. “You’re going to see a doctor right away.”

Tony groaned, quite petulantly so. He didn’t really have a choice in the matter, given that he couldn’t exactly move.

(His muscles twitched, exhausted, and ached a _lot_.)

So Steve picked him up gently and carried him bridal style away from the mess their battle has caused. Honestly, if having his breath stolen away gave him the chance for Steve to actually carry him, it was _so_ worth it. Too bad the armour prevented him from feeling those muscles undoubtedly moving and tensing under Tony’s (and the armour’s) weight.

***

His report to the medical bay didn't do him any good. In fact, his visit lasted a little less than half an hour. They asked him if he was injured, then if he was sick, or if he smoked, and then moved the cold surface of a stethoscope around his back, ordering him to breathe in large gulps of air.

All this under the careful supervision of Captain America, who insisted accompanying Tony. He probably suspected that Tony would have fled otherwise. Which was what Tony would have done, had Steve not followed him, breathing down his neck.

( _Literally_. Tony could still feel his hot breath on the back of his neck, making him shiver. Thankfully, the doctor examining him interpreted that as a shiver from the cold than a shiver from pleasure.)

And after the thoroughly lacking examination, they ushered him away with a small Ventolin.

Which in the end was completely useless to him. Once he was safely back in his personal lab and Steve safely away in his own bedroom, Tony had a coughing fit.

Sure, he fell sick from time to time. That was normal. The itching and scratching of his throat afterward were also normal.

What _wasn't_ normal was the taste of blood it left behind.

Feeling a little unnerved despite himself, he gulped down one or two spoonfuls of coughing syrup. And to be on the safer side, downed a quarter of a bottle of honey.

***

He had been wheezing for the entire week, uncontrollable coughing fits from time to time breaking his calm.

He could hide it from his teammates, naturally. Tony was good at that, after all.

Unfortunately, he couldn't hide it from _himself_. This… sickness, whatever it was, left him both frustrated and unnerved. He had never been this sick, and it prevented him from working efficiently.

He had never been too sick to the point that it felt like he was coughing his lungs out.

It was to the point that he couldn't just ignore it anymore, so he did what was the most obvious course of action.

“JARVIS, scan me.” He paused. “For any irregularity. _Any_ ,” he insisted.

“Starting to scan, sir.”

He stood immobile for a couple of tense minutes, staring right in front of him with his mind as blank as he could possibly manage. He didn't want to dwell on the many diseases that had these symptoms. He _didn't._

“Scan complete. It appears you have something growing in your lungs, sir. Researching an approximate disease with this symptom.”

Tony stayed surprisingly quiet, even for himself. The seconds ticked by incredibly slowly.

“The symptoms, including heavy coughing and loss of air, belong to the Hanahaki Disease.”

“What’s that?” he asked, furrowing his brows. He had never heard of any disease like that one before.

“Hanahaki Disease is a disease in which the victim coughs flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love,” JARVIS intoned. And, somehow, his voice sounded both tense and sorrowful.

Tony continued staring ahead of him.

***

His first reaction was the same as always—seek out Pepper, because Pepper Potts always knew better.

Well, his first reaction was to actually investigate more thoroughly this incredibly rare disease, and _then_ he called Pepper.

Although it was a rare disease, it killed many a year. But even more survived, either by removing the flower growing in their chest surgically or by discovering that their unrequited love wasn't that unrequited.

Ironically, the first petals left his mouth on his way to seek comfort from Pepper. Right when she opened the door.

He heaved roughly, colourful petals mixed with blood falling to the ground as Tony leaning against the threshold so he wouldn't fall face first. Pepper was immediately next to him, hands on his shoulder and his back.

She didn't ask right away what was happening or _why the hell was Tony practically vomiting flower petals on her perfectly cleaned floor_. Instead, she waited until his coughing fit passed, helped Tony sit on the cough, closed the front door, and picked up the bloodied petals.

And _then_ she asked questions. And Tony replied honestly to all of them—he had been planning to explain everything to her, either way. It was just a little unnerving to see _actual_ petals coming right from his _lungs_. It all felt so surreal.

“You’d think they would have developed some kind of medicine for this by now,” he joked.

Pepper levelled him a hard glare as she twirled the bloodied pink petals in her hand, staining her perfectly manicured nails. “This is not a _joking_ matter, Tony.”

“Oh, I don't know, Pep. Seems like the biggest joke of my entire life. And you know I had many,” he added, plucking a petal from between his teeth. “Killed by love. Well, in this case, unrequited love. How ironic.”

She breathed in slowly through her nose. And promptly _hesitated_. “It’s not me, is it?”

 _Oh_. “Nah. I love you, Pep, but I also learnt my lesson.”

“Who is it?” she asked curiously because of _course_ she would be. It was not every day that Tony Stark fell in love.

 _Tony_ _Stark_ himself had not even known it was _love._ He honestly thought it was just a physical attraction like he had for so many people. But perhaps getting to taste what friendship with Steve Rogers felt like had accelerated and morphed his attraction into something else entirely.

 _Jeez_. Steve Rogers. Dying for loving Steve Rogers. Wasn't that also incredibly ironic?

“It doesn't matter,” he said because he can't quite lie to her, but he also refuses to tell her who it was he loved. (To the point of dying, _dammit_!) When she opened her mouth to argue, he added, “Just drop it. Please.”

She huffed, displeased, but she also respected the few boundaries that Tony had. “Fine.” And then she took pity on him and handed him a napkin so he could wipe the blood off his mouth and chin. “What are you going to do?” she asked after a tense moment of silence.

He shrugged. “There isn't much to be done, is it?”

She frowned, disapproving his flippant attitude. “You can always have that surgery you talked about.”

“No,” he answered decisively.

Finally, she sat next to him. “Is that person really worth your life, Tony?” she asked. And there definitely was worry in her voice, Tony could hear it. It kind of broke Tony’s heart a little more.

“Yes. Definitely.” God, he was getting a little too sappy. “Guess this is a death I cannot escape.”

And now there were tears in Pepper’s eyes. Good one, Stark. He started to regret coming here, burdening Pepper with the knowledge of Tony’s disease, but he would have done it all again had he be given the chance.

He would have gone mad if he was the only one knowing that he was going to die soon.

***

Pepper called almost every day, whenever she found the time, to ask for his health. And every time, Tony would answer with an uninterested “I’m fine, everything’s the same, nothing changed, I’m not gonna drop dead tomorrow, love ya, bye”.

The thing is… he might actually drop dead the next day. Whereas that first time in Pepper’s threshold he had coughed up around five petals, it worsened to around fifty per day. And he was sure it would worsen by the end of the week. He did the math, _JARVIS_ did the math, and they both came to the conclusion that by the end of next week’s, there would be no more Tony Stark.

(And can you imagine that? A world _without_ Tony Stark? Without his awesome jokes, his amazing brain, and his otherworldly handsomeness? Unimaginable. Sad.)

Of course, Tony was great at lying and hiding and everything that goes with that. He stayed longer inside his personal lab, ate at odd hours to avoid the others, and barely slept. It’s not like he isolated himself, either way. He still went up sometimes to make sure everything was all right, that nobody killed the other, and so he could also crack his usual jokes. (They loved them, even if they feigned that they didn’t.)

The thing that changed was that when he was with the other Avengers, he used concealer to hide the sickly paleness of his skin. However, he might as well have let the others see it and guess that it was more from sleep-deprivation than a rare disease because Bruce and Natasha were definitely suspicious now. Why the hell did they have to be so damn perceptive?

So, _really_ , it shouldn’t have been a surprise that one day Bruce came down to Tony’s personal lab. And Tony, like the damn fool he was, authorised his entry.

“Tony, are you all right?”

Tony stopped his hammering (his armour received a really nasty dent during the last mission) and looked up. Bruce had that pitying look that Tony hated, so he resumed his job, avoiding Bruce’s gaze. It made something churn in his gut and made him feel a little agitated.

“I’m fine.”

There was a pause. “Yeah? Care to explain why there are bloodstained petals in the trash bin?”

Against his better judgment, that made Tony look up, shoulders tensed up. All right, that definitely was a glare right there. Okay. “Well, the second option was flushing them down the toilet. I now realise that would’ve been a better option.”

“Tony, you’re _dying_.”

Tony whistled, abandoning his work. “Wow, you reached that conclusion because of some petals?”

Bruce made a frustrated grunt in his throat and approached him. Belatedly, Tony realised he probably shouldn’t rile the man up if he didn’t want a premature death by being squashed to the floor. “I _know_ the Hanahaki Disease.”

“I’d ask how, but I’m not sure I would want to know.”

“I travelled a lot. I’ve seen many people fall to that sickness.” He was quiet for a moment. “And I’m guessing you have no intention of doing the surgical removal?”

“Nope,” Tony replied, popping the end.

Bruce seemed to struggle with something, furrowing his eyebrows and eyes glaring at Tony’s worktable. The latter took a step back, just to be on the safe side. “Look, I realise that you don’t want to tell him, but I’d think that you would prefer to spend your last days with us instead of locked up alone in your lab.”

“I’m not alone,” he automatically said. “Right, JARVIS?”

“I am not corporeal, sir. You are indeed physically alone.”

“Traitor,” Tony muttered. _Wait a second…_ “Him?” he asked, turning back to Bruce, eyes wide.

Bruce only raised an eyebrow, like the answer was too obvious and Tony was an _idiot_. (Which he was _not_ , goddammit.)

“How the hell do you even know _that_?”

The man shrugged and turned around. Oh, now he was being _petty_. “Think about what I said, please.”

***

The infuriating thing about all this was that Bruce was annoyingly right.

(Not about Tony being an idiot. No, no. Tony was a _genius_ , obviously.)

He stopped locking himself in his lab and shuffled upstairs. Bruce was right─he certainly wouldn’t want to die hammering a suit he wouldn’t be able to use. (And did everything he was doing in his lab matter, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see the results? To use it?) So he continued to share his time with his teammates─under the still suspicious glare of Natasha. Either way, it was way more appealing spending his last days next to Steve than alone.

So he watched movies with the others. And if he let Steve take the popcorn bowl just so he could lean against him to reach it, could anyone really blame him?

(The best part wasn’t the movie, however. The best part was falling asleep during the movie, leaning against Steve’s shoulder and snuggling next to him, Steve’s arm comfortably around Tony’s shoulder. It was honestly the best way to die, in his humble opinion.)

And he continued to make flippant jokes, lame innuendos, and teach Steve movie references because there was no way he would leave a clueless Steve alone in the Earth. Steve didn’t even know the “I Am Your Father” reference. What the _heck_.

***

Tony almost died that Sunday morning, which was a little too soon since he should die around next Sunday, not today.

He woke up with a strangled gasp, choking on _something_. It wasn’t petals this time, for sure, because he had never had a reaction this violent. His hands automatically flew to his throat, not actually helping but a small comfort for his inability to do _anything_ about this disease. JARVIS took it upon himself to call rescue, and seconds later Bruce strode into his bedroom, looking slightly frenzied.

Bruce sat Tony up, clapping his back as blood splattered on his pure white sheets. Something was going up his throat, he could feel with every second it stayed stuck and painstakingly slowly made its way up.

After what felt like an eternity, he stared dazedly at the pink flower bathing in a small puddle of spit blood. Next to him, Bruce was telling him to breathe slowly, soothingly rubbing his back in small movements.

 _Dammit_.

Were his (and JARVIS’) calculations wrong? Was everything speeding up?

“A pink camellia,” Bruce was saying because of _course_ Bruce knew every flower name. “Do you know what they symbolise?”

Tony shook his head. He was an engineer, not a _botanist_.

Bruce, however, not only was he an excellent scientist, he was also a knowledgeable botanist, apparently. Which, _really_ , should have come as a surprise. “Pink camellias symbolise longing. They literally mean ‘longing for you’.”

Tony sharply looked up. “Oh.” A heartbeat. “That’s so cheesy.”

“Is this the first time?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah,” Tony answered. He picked up the flower, turning it around with his thumb and forefinger. “How many days do you reckon I have?” Bruce _did_ look more well-informed about this disease than he was.

Bruce hesitated. “I’d say four. Maybe less. Probably less.”

“ _Great_.” He rubbed his tired face. Scotch really did seem appealing right about now.

“Tony, you should tell him.”

“I still don’t know how you know about _that_ , but these flowers already hurt a bunch, I don’t need a broken heart as a bonus.”

Bruce let out a frustrated sound (he loved doing that whenever he was with Tony, apparently) and controlled his breath. “You’re an idiot.”

“Is idiot a new synonym for genius? I haven’t kept up with internet slang lately.”

***

Thankfully, it looked like Bruce hadn’t told anybody about what was happening. Nobody looked at him twice, or with worry or─worse─pitying. So everything’s okay. He walked barefoot down the stairs to his personal lab and didn’t resurface until way, _way_ later.

Five. Five pink camellias. And each time he coughed them, sitting in a corner of the room, holding his throat desperately as tears streamed down his red face, it felt like dying. Each damn time.

It left him exhausted, and that’s how he appeared upstairs, sickly pale skin (he couldn’t be bothered to apply concealer, not anymore) and dark bags under his eyes. He looked like a ghost. (Get it? Because he _was_ dying.)

In his hands was a bouquet of pink camellias that Tony couldn’t bring himself to throw them away. As cheesy as it sounded, it was a proof of Tony’s love for Steve. Maybe dying made him a lovesick fool.

“Who are those for?” Steve asked.

Tony almost jumped out of his sick and turned around. Steve sat on the couch watching TV, his head casually turned around to peek curiously at Tony. That is until he actually took a better look at Tony’s face and his gaze morphed into worry. He immediately stood up and approached him.

“Um.” God, now he was _stuttering_. Really, how could anyone resist those earnest eyes?

“Tony, are you okay? When was the last time you slept?”

Thank god they were friends now. Having Steve in his life was like a blessing, like something had been missing and he filled it just _right_. (He really should stop being cheesy. It was unbecoming of him.)

“Dunno,” he answered truthfully, twirling the flowers around.

Steve’s eyes softened, for some damn reason, and his hand twitched. And twitched.

Tony furrowed his eyebrows and looked at it dubiously. “Are _you_ okay?”

And then it twitched again, except this time it went up and slowly touched Tony’s face, removing the sweaty fallen strands of hair from his eyes. It trailed down, caressing Tony’s cheeks softly.

Tony’s heart did a thousand somersaults in his ribcage and his breath caught in his throat. _Please don’t cough, please don’t cough, please don’t cough_. If that damn disease ruined this moment he wouldn’t wait three or fewer days to die and would kill himself right there and then.

He didn’t cough, though.

Steve’s hand continued its path to the corner of Tony’s mouth, emboldened by the way Tony was probably looking at Steve. God, was he _really_ that obvious?

And when Steve’s face approached his, he honestly thought he would faint from lack of breathing. Except he didn’t, because _Steve’s_ lips touched _his_ lips and now he could die happy. He didn’t know what was happening but he certainly would enjoy the hell out of it.

He dropped the flowers and, standing on his tiptoes, looped his arms around Steve’s shoulders and kissed him deeply. _Now_ he was definitely out of breath.

The kiss didn’t last long, however, and they both parted, breathing hard. (Tony was more wheezing than actually breathing, but who cares?) Oh, and when did Steve slide his arms around Tony’s waist?

Steve brought a hand up and brushed Tony’s hair from his face again. “God, I love you.”

“Yeah,” Tony said eloquently, breathlessly. _Wait, what_. “What.”

Steve’s cheeks flushed, because of course Steve had to look adorable in this moment. Not that Tony was complaining, obviously. “I love you,” he repeated.

Tony stared. And stared some more. “You _do_?”

Steve nodded, a small smile curving over the edge of his lips.

“Oh.” He looked down at them at the scattered flowers. “They… were for you, actually. I mean. They’re yours.”

Steve looked at them, uncertain. “Really?”

“Yeah. I was told they mean something like longing or whatever.”

 _Oh_ , and Steve’s smile was definitely worth having coughed them up. And Steve’s kisses even more worth it.

***

He never coughed petals or flowers ever again.


End file.
